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Clyde Tombaugh Day celebrates life of famed astronomer

By S. Derrickson Moore / dmoore@lcsun-news.com

Posted:
02/09/2013 03:36:01 PM MST

LAS CRUCES — The life of the extraordinary man who discovered a planet was celebrated Saturday at the Las Cruces Museum of Nature and Science at Clyde Tombaugh Day, which organizers hope will become an annual event.

Among those who participated in the celebration were area kids who happily made telescopes and Pluto flags, along with Tombaugh's children and great-grandchildren, astronomy buffs and fans of the legendary space pioneer and his work, which included the discovery of the planet Pluto on Feb. 18, 1930.

And our favorite little heavenly body IS a planet— if a dwarf planet— and a cool member of our solar system. Very cool, explained Chas Miller, a New Mexico State University astronomy graduate student who offered a presentation on the New Horizons mission to Pluto, launched with Clyde's ashes aboard in 2006 and scheduled to reach Pluto on July 14, 2015.

Miller wore a T-shirt proclaiming "Pluto is Cool ...

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minus 380 degrees," and shared other facts about its composition: "Pluto is a mixture of rock and ice. Its surface is frozen methane, frozen carbon monoxide and frozen nitrogen."

Its temperature rages from minus 387 to 370 degrees farenheit, there is evidence of occasional geyser activity, and Pluto has five moons: Nix, Hydra, Charon, P4 and P5, Miller said, adding that "Pluto is a dwarf planet because it's small, smaller than our moon."

Jai Madrigal, 5, happily pointed his newly-made telescope at sites around the museum.

"We come for the activities. Right now, dinosaurs are his favorite thing," said Jai's dad, Jerry Madrigal, as the budding astronomer scoped out his environment.

"Clyde was my first boss, at my first job as an engineer at White Sands," said Austin L. Vick with the White Sands Historical Foundation.

"I'm just generally interested in astronomy," said Glenn Brookshear of Las Cruces, who recalled that he was at NMSU when Tombaugh taught there but never met him.

"This was the most interesting talk I've been to lately," said another astronomy buff Ken McLennan of Las Cruces.

The family-friendly activities included games, art projects, solar telescope viewing in conjunction with the Las Cruces Astronomy Society and the New Mexico State University Astronomy Department and presentations by Dave Dooling, education director of the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo, site of the Clyde Tombaugh Planetarium.

Artifacts from Tombaugh's life are also on display, loaned to the museum by the famed astronomer's daughter and son, Annette and Al Tombaugh, who talked about growing up in the Tombaugh household at an evening star party at Clyde's namesake school: Tombaugh Elementary School, 226 Carver Road.

Though sandstorms Saturday hampered optimum telescope viewing, those attending found plenty of conversational fodder in the life and accomplishments of Tombaugh, who discovered a planet before he attended college and went on to make decades of important contributions to space research, astronomy and education. He and his wife Patricia Edson Tombaugh moved to Las Cruces in 1946 and raised their family here. Tombaugh became chief of Optical Measurements Section at White Sands Proving Ground, was involved in several projects there, and taught at NMSU until his 1973 retirement as Emeritus Professor of Astronomy. He spoke and raised funds for scholarship programs until his death in 1997.

Clyde Tombaugh Day will be an annual "signature" event for the new Las Cruces Museum of Nature and Science, said Kim Hanson, the museum's education curator. The museum has a permanent display that focuses on Tombaugh.